MOVIE REVIEW: Not much to love about this 'Lucy'

If, as they say, we employ a mere 10 percent of our brains, I suspect Luc Besson tapped barely a hundredth of his while writing and directing “Lucy.” Star Scarlett Johansson even less.

By Al AlexanderFor The Patriot Ledger

If, as they say, we employ a mere 10 percent of our brains, I suspect Luc Besson tapped barely a hundredth of his while writing and directing “Lucy.” Star Scarlett Johansson even less. Together, they redefine stupid by thinking they’re smart in presenting an exceedingly dumb account of what it’s like to exploit a brain’s full potential. Irony never had it so good. It’s a literal meeting of the meatheads, with Besson filling the screen with a mix of gratuitous violence and laughable metaphors, and Johansson struggling to register the faintest pulse.

Proving that blondes do have more dumb, Johansson wears a perpetually clueless expression in her portrayal of the title character, an American attending college in Taipei. The name Lucy is significant because, as you anthropology fans will remember, it’s the moniker slapped on our oldest chronicled ape ancestor. Safe to say the old Lucy had more on the ball than our Lucy, who, thanks to her Euro-trash boyfriend, winds up kidnapped by Taiwanese bad guys and forced to become a drug mule. Ah, but what’s in those large, clear-plastic bags? Is it the famous crystal-blue meth from “Breaking Bad”? It sure looks like it. But, alas, it’s some concoction carrying the banal title CHP4. Oh, but the wonderful things this substance can do in expanding the mind and body. Lucy learns this firsthand when some of the wonder drug leaks into her system and allegedly causes her brain power to grow incrementally until reaching 100 percent. But why stop there? Why not 110 percent or more? Given his love of excess, I’m sure Besson (“La Femme Nikita”) would have gone there if given the time and inclination. Yet, even at compact 89 minutes, he manages to go overboard with outlandish set pieces, choppy edits and dizzying storytelling that seldom plays by its own rules.

Intelligence clearly is not part of the Frenchman’s vocabulary. Neither is logic. Otherwise, we wouldn't be left scratching our heads over such contradictions as Lucy pressing her luscious lips up against a hunky Parisian detective (Amr Waked) mere minutes after we’ve been told she’s lost all concept of love and affection. Or the creepy dialogue, like Lucy phoning her mother – while on the operating table, no less – and telling Mom that “I can remember (as a baby) the taste of your milk in my mouth.” Unfortunately, that’s the only time “taste’ enters the equation in a movie that uses brains as nothing but a handy target for a barrage of bullets to countless skulls. The message being that brains can do a lot of things, but they can’t stop ammo.

In the right hands, “Lucy” could have been fascinating sci-fi. Instead of blood and guts, brain expansion could have been used to tackle something humanitarian, like the ability to solve global warming or find a cure for cancer. But that stuff is too boring for thin attention spans. Better to put your brains where your groin is, and flaunt Johansson’s shapely breasts and come-hither eyes. And the things she can do with a white T-shirt and a Glock! It’s an assault on our primal urges as much as an insult on our IQs.

Yet, I can’t deny that I was entertained, in that “Lucy” is so awful it’s good. I also begrudgingly give Besson credit for throwing restraint to the wind. He makes no bones about ripping off other movies (“D.O.A.,” “The Time Machine” and “Limitless” come quickly to mind), nor is he shy about throwing a wrench into the mechanics of quality filmmaking. It’s gutsy. As is his rampant use of blatant metaphors, like splicing in a pride of hungry lions devouring defenseless impalas while Lucy falls prey to her kidnappers. Or a thug washing the blood off his hands following the first of dozens of murders in a film obsessed with killing everything in its path. I couldn’t stop laughing.

I also couldn’t stop wondering why Morgan Freeman got mixed up in this mess. The man formally known as God at least is allowed to make full use of his noggin as a psychology professor specializing in the evolution of the brain. He’s wasted of course, reduced to providing expository dialogue during a lecture that’s spliced in with shots of Lucy steadily gaining brain power. And if somehow you couldn’t pick up on that progress, Besson courteously inserts title cards to remind us what level Lucy is currently at in terms of brain activity.

Like I said, it’s so moronic, you can’t help but chuckle – for awhile. By the final 20 minutes, though, you’re ready to strangle Besson, as his film goes completely off the rails with Lucy sprouting tentacles (via ultra-cheesy special effects) and connecting to a bank of computers to download her “knowledge.” Then, in the middle of it all, Lucy’s brain checks out and goes on a trip back in time, stopping to visit Manhattan in the gay ‘90s (that’s 1890, not to be confused with the 1990s), powwowing with a quartet of perplexed Plains indians and hobnobbing with prehistoric creatures before blasting back off into space. It’s about then you’ll want to blast off – to the exits. But stick around, because the final scene is a scream, capped by Freeman literally holding the whole world in his hands.

Who thinks this stuff up? Besson, that’s who. And bless his strange demented mind, even if he’s only capitalizing on its slimmest and slimiest recesses. After all, it takes brains to be this idiotic.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.